J.K.L. Ross House

J.K.L. Ross is best remembered as the playboy who burned his way through $16-million in almost as many years and whose tale of excess is told in the history of the James Ross House. He was married in 1902 to Ethel Matthews and as a wedding present his father bought the couple a plot of land - directly across the street from his own home - from the estate of the late Mrs Andrew Allan, sister-in-law of the laird of Ravenscrag. The plot purchased by James Ross enjoyed a frontage of 150-feet on Peel Street with a garden that stretched all the way back to McTavish Street on which it had a frontage of 200-feet.

By 1903, on behalf of his only son, Jack's father had commissioned the brothers Edward & William Maxwell to design a three-story home of Indiana limestone in the fashionable Beaux-Arts style. However, for one reason or another, work did not start until 1908 and it would take nearly two years to complete. Yet, despite the size of its elegant oak-panelled rooms, it quickly proved to be too small for the parties that Jack Ross preferred to host.

The Ross Guesthouse

After James Ross died in 1913, Jack moved his family into the larger Ross house across the street, and the now vacated J.K.L. Ross House then became perhaps the city's most exclusive guesthouse. Often occupied by his friends from New York society who Ross brought up on his private rail car "Cromarty" for his famously lavish parties, the house also served those closer to home who required temporary accommodation while being used to a certain standard of living: Sir Montagu and Lady Allan booked themselves in when Ravenscrag was offered to visiting Royals; and, in December, 1922, the Governor-General and his wife, Lord and Lady Byng, made it their home for the month.

Frank H. Anson and the Shaughnessy Barracks

In 1922, Jack carried out a series of renovations to the James Ross House and in the same year disposed of his rather grandiose guesthouse for $160,000 to Frank H. Anson, President of the Abitibi Power & Paper Co., who dropped dead just one year later. Its unknown if his widow's short sojourn had anything to do with her noisy neighbor across the street, but either way in 1926 Mrs Anson sold up for an undisclosed sum to Jack's old friend Bill Shaughnessy, 2nd Lord Shaughnessy. Bill moved in with his family and two years later Jack Ross was bankrupt. The Shaughnessys lived here through the worst of the Great Depression but while their finances remained more or less in tact, their health didn't: Lady Shaughnessy died in 1936, followed two years later by Bill, aged just 55.

From 1942, the house was dubbed the "Shaughnessy Barracks" as it became a home to - and a recruitment centre for - members of the Canadian Women's Army Corps, who also occupied the older Ross house across the street. A year after peace was declared, it was bought by Marianopolis College and was part of their campus until it was sold to McGill University in 1976. Today, it is home to the university's Biomedical Ethics Department.